Document Changes

When you want to know the changes performed in a Finance Document you have a specific transaction for it, FB04.

Using transaction FB04 and entering the proper document you will have information about the changes entered in the document between the data ranges you choose. You can double click in a particular change to obtain additional details. Very useful!

Banks in SAP

In a financial system, Banks always are important.

Banks in SAP are used by the company codes for several purposes (payments, etc).

Companies have the House Banks, identified in the system as a unique Bank Id. The house banks have bank accounts, in this case identified with a Bank Account ID.

Taking into account theses concepts, the bank master data will contain the house bank id, the account numbers ids and the corresponding banks GL (and other information).

To Define House Banks, SAP provides transaction FI12 or following this path:

IMG->Financial Accounting (new)->Bank Accounting->Bank Accounts->Define House Banks

The definition of the rest of the banks (banks of customers or vendors) is done in SAP menu, using transaction FI01 or following the path:

SAP Menu->Accounting->Financial Accounting->Banks->Master Data->Bank Master Data->FI01 – Create

Withholding tax

What is Withholding tax?

Withholding tax also is called retention tax. Sometimes the payer has to deduct tax from the payment and pay that tax to the government. That is the withholding tax.

For example, the payer deducts from the employment income the tax and then he pay to the government that retained tax.

The withholding tax applies to several business transactions and SAP gives the possibility of configure them.

Also you have the possibility in SAP of using EWT (Extended Withholding tax) instead of classic withholding tax. It is recommended using EWT.

Configuration of withholding tax. 

To configure the withholding tax you have to navigate to following path:

IMG->Financial Accounting (New)->Financial Accounting Global Settings (New)->Withholding tax->Extended Withholding task->Basic Settings

• Check Withholding tax countries: It’s defined a key for each country.
• Define Withholding tax keys: To identify the different withholding tax types and names.
• Define reasons for exemption: In this point of customizing the reasons for possible exemptions are defined. Later in master data of Vendor or Countries, those reasons are used in the corresponding information about Withholding tax.
• Check Recipient types.
• Check Income types.

In Vendor Master Data (Transaction FK01) is where you have to enter the Withholding tax information for a specific vendor.

After that, if you create a Vendor Invoice for that vendor using SAP transaction FB60 and select checkbox “calculate tax”, the system automatically will calculate the withholding tax amount of the invoice. In the simulation of the posting you'll have all the details.

Calculation of the withholding tax. 

The calculation is configured in following path:

IMG->Financial Accounting (New)->Financial Accounting Global Settings (New)->Withholding tax->Extended Withholding tax->Calculation 

In this point of customizing is configured the withholding tax type, withholding tax code (where rates are defined), max/min amounts for withholding tax are defined, etc.

Activation of the withholding tax. 

Following the below path, extended withholding tax is activated:

IMG->Financial Accounting (New)->Financial Accounting Global Settings (New)->Withholding tax->Extended Withholding tax->Company Code->Activate extended withholding tax 

Account determination. 

In the below path is configured the account determination of withholding tax. The account determination is done at tax type level.

Automatic Payments

SAP provides a standard program to run automatic payments to vendors.

Having in the system vendor invoices to be paid, you can pay them with the payment program generating checks, transfers, bill of exchange or other payment methods.

Usually the payment method is defined in the invoice or vendor. In order to print those payment forms, there are standard programs for that purpose (they are specified for each payment method in the configuration).

It is important to have configured in the system our house banks, accounts, payment methods and payment forms.

House bank (bank id) is the bank where the company code has accounts. Note that each banks account is associated to a GL account in the system (it is defined in customizing, transaction FI12).

This first block explained in the post is related to the configuration. Transaction to configure the payment program is FBZP. The configuration is done at several levels:

•  Button “All Company Codes” (paying company code, cash discount, etc).

• Button “Paying Company Codes” (specifying how the payment is done). 

• Button “Pmnt methods in country” (configuring payment method at country level). Double clicking on a specific one, you can set all the parameters, included the Payment medium program. 

• Button “Pmnt method in company code”. Double clicking on a specific one, you can set all the parameters. 

• Button “Bank determination”. The payment program will determinate the house bank to perform the payment based on this configuration. The algorithm to determinate it is the following ( if any problem found during the sequence it is shown in the log of the payment run): 
• Selection of the house bank (bank id) based on payment method and currency.
• If not found, selection of the house banks based on payment method (without currency). 
• Selection of the account id based on bank id, payment method and currency. 
• Selection of the available amount based on bank id and account id. 

This second block of the post is related to the payment run. Once the automatic payment program is correctly configured, it’s time to run the process with SAP transaction F110. You have to follow these steps:

• Parameters. In the tab “Parameters” you enter the payment parameters. You use these parameters to define what you want to pay. If you go to the main tab “Status”, you will see in green the status “Parameters have been entered”. 

• Creation of the Proposal. Once you have saved the parameters, you have to click on button “Proposal”. In the tab “Status” you'll see the status “Payment Proposal has been created”.

• Visualization of the Proposal. Clicking on button “Display Proposal” you will see the payments to be done according to the parameters entered. You can modify the proposal, but if the selection doesn't meet your expectations and you need to delete it, from tab “status”, go to menu “Edit->Proposal->Delete”. After that, if you go to menu “Edit->Parameters->Maintain Parameters” and you could start the process entering again the parameters. 

• Payments run. Once the proposal of payment is ok for you, you will run the payment clicking on button “Payment run”. This process will create payment documents and prepare the data for printing. If everything is ok, the status will be as you see in image below. Note that paying Bank account is determined by the configuration step for Bank determination. To see the payment documents created go to Edit->Payment->Payment list. 

• Printout. After creating the payments, the payment medium is created (checks, banks transfer file, etc). It’s important to know that a Variant has to be created for the payment medium (using the transaction SE38) and assigned in the tab “Printout/data medium”. Also note that the payment media printout could be generate automatically during the payment run, or clicking on the proper button.

Display Vendor Line Items

For Vendors is available in SAP a transaction to display open and/or cleared items, the transaction is FBL1N.

Also you can follow the path:

SAP Menu-> Accounting->Financial Accounting->Accounts Payable->Account->FBL1N Display/Change Line items 

Double clicking on displayed documents you obtain the details, including if the invoice is blocked for payment.

If you want to know the related material document, you could navigate to Environment->Document Environment->Original Document

Copy Cost Center Plan

Yesterday I had the needed of coping the cost center plan data from one version to another. For this purpose I used SAP Transaction KP97.

The first execution of the transaction should be done in test mode (there is a checkbox for this purpose) selecting proper version, periods and year to be copied.

Is important to know that we have the possibility of overwriting target data selecting the check box “Reset and overwrite” in the selection screen.

After review the output log in test run, we are ready to execute the transaction in real mode coping data from a specific plan version to another.

Note that errors listed in the output log can be reviewed in detail clicking on button “Messages”.

Park FI Document

Don’t you have permissions to post a FI document? It’s usual in a company the existing of employees not authorized to enter FI documents without previously the document is revised by a proper reviewer.

In those occasions, you can enter the FI document using the transaction to park a document, F-65. You will enter all the information in the document and later, when a supervisor reviews the document, will post it.

The path to follow is the following:

SAP menu->Accounting->Financial Accounting->General Ledger->Posting->F-65 General Document Parking

Later, as approver, if you like to post the parked document you should use transaction FBV0.

What is a Vendor Invoice?

Following with basic financial concepts, what is a Vendor Invoice?

Easy, a Vendor Invoice is an accounting document.

Yes, but what it represents? It’s a “request” for payment of whichever thing we received from a provider.

There are two types of Vendor Invoices:

- Non-purchase order based invoices.

In this case, we have not any purchase order created previously. We have to pay to the provider for some service, for example the rent. The invoice is posted directly in General Ledger, debiting in the expense account and crediting in the vendor Account.

SAP Transaction to create the Non-PO-Based Invoice is FB60 or following the path:

SAP Menu->Accounting->Financial Accounting->Accounts Payable->Document Entry->FB60 – Invoice

Before save (post) the invoice you can simulate with button ‘Simulate’.

- Purchase order based invoices.

In this case, we have a previous purchase order requesting some good or services. Also, that service or good has been received against the purchasing order creating the “Good Receipt” document in MM module, debiting in the Inventory Account and Crediting GR/IR clearing account (this account is used to post goods/services which have not been invoiced.

Once we have received the goods/services we can create the Vendor Invoice referencing the purchase order previously created, debiting the GR/IR clearing account and crediting the Vendor Account.

SAP transaction to create the PO-Based Invoice is MIRO or following the path: 

SAP Menu->Logistics->Material Management->Logistics Invoice Verification->Document Entry->MIRO-Enter Invoice

When you enter de invoice data including the purchase order and post the document, the invoice number document is created. If that document has the status “Blocked for payment”, it is blocked for payment and has to be released before proceed with the payment.

That blocking is performed by the invoice verification process, consisting on match the price and quantity of PO, GR and Invoice (taking into account tolerances). If they do not match, SAP will block the invoice for payment.

To unblock the invoice you can use SAP transaction MRBR or following the path:

SAP Menu->Logistics->Material Management->Logistics Invoice Verification->Further Processing->MRBR-Release Blocked Invoices

Entering the proper data you will able to select the correct invoice to unblock. With the invoice selected, click on the flag button to release it. The status will change to “Released”.

Exchange Rates

This is a brief posting about Exchange Rates in SAP.

Exchange rates are maintained in transaction OB08.

Take into account that is possible to have several exchange rates for a specific date using the Exchange Rate type. Standard Average rate type (M) is used in accounting to convert document currency to local currency if apply.

With transaction OB22 you can change this setting and with transaction OC47 you can set up exchange rate types.

SAP Query

It’s time to extract data from our SAP System. How do it? It’s easy, with SAP Queries you have the possibility of creating your own extractions to manage the information you need.

To create a query you should follow 3 simple steps:

Step 1 – Create Infoset

The infoset is the set of tables where you will extract the data. Infoset is created in SAP with transaction SQ02 or following this path:

SAP Menu->Tools->ABAP Workbench->Utilities->SAP Query->SQ02 Infosets

When you are creating the infoset, data source is chosen as logical database or not (specifying directly the tables to extract).

If you choose the option of not using logical database, the selected table is shown in the screen and new ones could be inserted with the corresponding button ‘Insert table’.

Joins, link conditions, etc, also could be defined from this screen.

Once you have included all the required tables and their joins, is time to return to the previous screen with the back button. The system asks you about which field you want to be available for the later query creation.

Please note that if you want to use a particular table twice, SAP gives you the possibility using Alias. Click on ‘Alias’ button, specify the table (already used) and its alias, and then click on button ‘Insert Table’ and instead of specify a table, specify the alias created before.

It’s time to select the fields, save and generate the infoset. Now you have the Infoset ready to be used.

In SAP when you are creating queries, you have to take into account the Work Area. In SAP exists 2 type of Work areas, Standard Area (client-specific) and Global Area (cross-client).

Queries created in Standard Area won’t be transported to any client, however, queries created in Global Area could be transported, for example from development client to production one.

Note: A query created directly in production environment always must be created in Standard Area.

If you need to change the work area of a query, you could use SQ02 transaction, going to Environment->Query Areas and choosing the correct one.

Step 2 – Create User Group

The user group is set of authorized users for using the created query.

User Group is created with transaction SQ03, or following the path:

SAP Menu->Tools->ABAP Workbench->Utilities->SAP Query->SQ03 User Groups

In this menu, you create the user group with button ‘Create’ and Assign the users with the button ‘Assign users and Infoset’.

In the screen where you are assigning users to the user group, you can navigate to menu ‘Goto’ and ‘Assign Infoset’ (or visible button) and assign the Infoset to that user Group.

Step 3- Create Query

Is the query creation, based in the infoset (set of table) already defined.

The transaction to create the query is SQ01 or following the path:

SAP Menu->Tools->ABAP Workbench->Utilities->SAP Query->SQ01 Queries

The query is created for a specific user group, so the first step is choosing the proper user group, using the button ‘Other user group (Shift+F7)’.

Now is the moment to click on ‘Create’ button. The first thing the system is requesting is the name of the infoset where you want to select data.

In the following screen you specify the characteristics of your query, format, attributes, etc.

If you click on button ‘Next Screen (F6)’ you’ll see the list of fields available according to the selected infoset. You have to mark the fields you want to output in the query.

Clicking again on button ‘Next Screen (F6)’ you’ll see again the fields, in this case to select the fields you want to appear in the selection screen.

Also you can go to previous screen with the Menu ‘Goto’ and the proper submenu.

With Menu ‘Goto’->’Basic List’->’Structure’ you choose the extract layout of the query output, is the layout design (header, footer, etc…). If you have a look to the screen, button ‘Test (Ctrl+F8)’ and button ‘Check (Ctrl+F6)’ are available for your use.

At this moment you have created the query. It’s time to execute it. From SQ01, you can click on button ‘Execute (F9)’.

There is a second way to execute the query. When you create a query, an internal program is being created. That internal program also can be executed as a normal ABAP program, with SE38 transaction or with menus, jobs, etc.

But, how do you know the name of the program? It’s easy, from SQ01 select the button ‘Execute in Background (Shift+F6)’ and in the first screen you’ll see the name of the ABAP program generated with the query.

Query – QickViewer

There is another possibility of creating queries. Is with transaction SQVI or following the menu:

SAP Menu->Tools->ABAP Workbech->Utilities->SQVI QuickViewer

When this option you can create a basic query, selecting the tables where you want to extract the info and the corresponding layout. By this way is not necessary to create infoset as you saw in the explanation about SQ01.

When you click on button ‘Create’ the first screen is to choose data source. If you want a query to join tables, please select in Data Source ‘Table Join’.

A new window will appear in order to insert the tables you want and their relationship. Button ‘Inset Table (Shift+F1)’.

Clicking on ‘Back (F3)’ button, you navigate to the main screen where you have access to different tabs: Tab to select the list of output fields, tab to select the selection fields, tab to select the data source and tab to select the sort.

Please note that if you want to use a specific table twice, SAP gives you the possibility using Alias. Click on ‘Alias’ button, specify the table (already used) and its alias, and then click on button ‘Insert Table’ and instead of specify a table, specify the alias created before.

The way to execute is analog that the previous one. From SQVI clicking on ‘Execute’ button, or with the ABAP program generated (you can obtain the name clicking on button ‘Execute in background’) through SE38 (or whichever way you use an ABAP program, i.e. creating a job).

What is a Customer Credit Memo?

After talk about the customer invoice, it’s time to talk about Customer Credit Memo. What is it?

Customer Credit Memo also is an accounting document. Yes, but what it represents?

Easy, it is a document to reduce the amount to be paid by a customer. For example if a customer performs a return of goods, a Customer Credit Memo should be created in the system. In this case, the creation of this accounting document will credit the customer account.

The Customer Credit Memo can be created using transaction FB75 or F-27. Also following this path:

SAP Menu->Accounting->Financial Accounting->Accounts Receivable->Document Entry->FB75 – Credit Memo or F-27 Credit Memo General

What is a Customer Invoice?

What is a Customer Invoice? 

Good question, a customer invoice is an accounting document.

Yes, but what it represents? It’s a request for payment of whichever thing provided to a customer.

Transaction to enter a customer invoice is FB70 or F-22. Also could be entered following the path:

SAP Menu->Accouting->Financial Accouting->Accounts Receivable->Document Entry-> FB70 Invoice or F-22 – Invoice General

When we are creating the customer invoice, we will enter in the first tab the Basic Data, like Posting date, Invoice Date, Currency, text, calculate tax (if apply), the customer number in the customer field… and don’t forget to enter In Payment tab the payment terms.

If you want to simulate the post of the document, the “Simulate” button is available. Very useful, once you agree with the displayed results by the simulation, the document could be posted using the “Save” button.

Financial Statement

Year-end closing is a complex task in whichever Company. A lot of activities are performed and many departments usually work on it.

As part of that stage the creation of the Financial Statement is very important, always taking into account the legal requirements of the country where the company belongs.

Are you now involved on this task? To perform it, previously you have to define a Financial Statement Version, matching with the layout of the required financial statement. The transaction to create the Financial Statement version is OB58.

The output of the execution could be configured to match with your requirements (using ABAP list viewer).

SAP provides transaction S_ALR_87012284 to generate the Financial Statement. The corresponding path is:

Accounting->Financial Accounting->General Ledger->Information System->General Ledger Reports (New)->Financial Statement/Cash Flow->General->Actual/Actual Comparisons.

Customer Master Data

Customers… En SAP we perform a special management of them. Without enter in CRM module, FI-SD offers a good management of customers. Master data is created and shared cross module, being FI and SD the main ones using this master data.

When we create a customer in SAP, several groups of information is entered. The Financial related one can be divided into 2 groups:

• General Data. Information entered like name, address, language, etc. 
• Company Code data. This information is related to the company code where the customer is used. Examples of data entered here: recondition account to be used, the payment terms, bank details, the dunning procedure, alternative payer, etc. 

SAP transaction code to enter Customer data is FD01 or XD01. Also following those paths:

SAP Menu->Accounting->Financial Accounting->Accounts Receivable->Master Records->FD01 – Create 

Or 

SAP Menu->Accounting->Financial Accounting->Accounts Receivable->Master Records->Maintain Centrally-> XD01 – Create 

After Customer creation, the data can be shown with FD03 or XD03; and modify with FD02 or XD02.

After that, the changes performed in the mater data can be listed using this transaction: FD04 or XD04. Old and new field values are listed for your checks.

Reverse a FI Document

Something you did is not right?

Don’t worry, once you have posted a document, still we have the possibility of reverse it. Specifically we have two options:

The first option is reverse the document individually, with SAP transaction FB08.

Path: SAP menu->Accounting->Financial Accounting->Document->Reverse->FB08 – Individual Reversal

With this option, you enter the document number, company code and fiscal year (to identify the document) and is mandatory also indicating a Reversal Reason between the list of reasons given by SAP (Incorrect WBS, Incorrect cost center, etc). Yes, it’s sure you’ll have a reason to reverse the document.

Additionally, we have a second option to reverse a document, several documents at the same execution, in mass mode, using the transaction F.80 

Path: SAP menu->Accounting->Financial Accounting->Document->Reverse->F.80 – Mass Reversal

With this option we have a set of fields to define the criteria to reverse the documents. It is important remark that we have the possibility of test run the execution previously to the real mass reversal. Yes, we strongly suggest run this transaction in test mode before the real execution.

Note: The system doesn’t allow reverse cleared items until the clearing is reset. In that case using the transaction FBRA the link between cleared item and clearing document is broken, and reverses should be possible. But be carefully with this “practice”.

FI Posting with F-02

It’s time to post a FI document in SAP. The system gives you the possibility of use several transactions depending on the nature of the document to post.

Today I am going to use the transaction F-02, for entering G/L Account Posting. This transaction gives you more power in the document entry and more flexibility, for example it gives the possibility of enter the posting key for each item.

The path in SAP Menu is: SAP Menu -> Accounting->Financial Accounting->General Ledger->Posting->F-02 General Posting

Once you have entered header information and items information, click on Document overview icon (landscape icon) to review or double click into information you want to change. Don’t forget, it’s a good practice, Simulate the posting before perform the save action. With Simulation you can see the lines to be generated with the post, even the automatic one to be generated.

Field Status Group

Thanks for your patient! Some weeks after my last post, today I am talking briefly about the “Field Status Group”.

The FSG determines the fields to be entered in a document during the posting process. With the proper use of the FSG you could decide the mandatory, optional or hidden fields during the process.

The screen where you are entering data will reflect exactly your decision of hide or not, set as mandatory or not, the defined process.

The path in customizing to set the FSG is:

SAP Customizing Implemantion Guide-> Entreprise Controlling->Consolidation->Intergration: Preparation for Consolidation->Preparation in the Sender System->Further Settings for Business Area Consolidations->Financial Accounting->Maintain Field Status Groups for G/L Accounts

Number Ranges for Accounting Documents

Document number, a key concept used every day in our SAP work. 

Have you ever asked how this number is generated? In this post you have the response.

SAP standard transaction to manage Number Ranges for Accounting Documents is FBN1
Also you can access following in customizing following path:

SAP Customizing Implementation Guide-> Financial Accounting (New) -> Financial Accounting Global Settings (New) -> Document -> Document Number Ranges -> Document in Entry View -> Define Document Number Ranges for Entry View

In the first screen, you have to enter the Company Code because document ranges depends on it.

In the second screen to set the ranges, you will see that document ranges for accounting also depends on fiscal year.

During each fiscal year, it is specified the range to be used when an accounting document is created, and for your information also you can see in the last document number created.

 

Splitting in General Accounting

To set-up the splitting in SAP, following steps have to be performed. Path in customizing to perform those steps is: Financial Accounting (New)->General Ledger Accounting (New)->Business Transactions->Document Splitting

1) Classify G/L Accounts for Document Splitting.
It is specified the item category and the account ranges to be managed in the splitting (Item category is derived from account type. For example, Vendors).

2) Classify Document Types for Document Splitting.
Each document type is associated to a business transaction type, so entering the business transaction and the variant in this screen, the corresponding type of document appear in this customizing.

3) Define Document splitting characteristic for General Ledger - Field “Zero Balance”: If you mark the flag, when the characteristic is not equal to zero, the system generates automatically a clearing line for balance purpose.
- Field “Partner field”: Is you specify this field, a sender/received relationship is documented the clearing line created additionally.
- Field “Mandatory field”: To force to fill a value.

4) Edit Constants for Nonassigned processes
In customizing also is defined which constant is set when the derivation is not possible, for example “Dummy” (Edit Constant for no assignment processes).

5) Activate Document splitting
Splitting has to be activated in customizing and select the method for the splitting.
- Field “Inheritance”: If you mark this flag, the document splitting characteristics for General Accounting are forwarded to lines that not have any assignments.
- Field “Standard Account Assignment”: A constant value is inherited in the splitting lines.

6) Extended Document Splitting->Define Document Splitting Method
Is defined the method to be used in the previous step when we are activating the splitting.

7) Extended Document Splitting->Define Document Splitting Rule
Perhaps this is the most important step in the splitting. During the process of splitting each business transaction entered here is analyzed specifying its business transaction variant. The splitting will be done following a “Processing category” specified, for example “1-Splliting based on base item categories”. And in this step also we specified which those base item categories are in order to perform correctly the splitting.

8) Extended Document Splitting->Assign Document Splitting Method
Is the same step than step 5.

9) Extended Document Splitting->Define Business transaction Variants
Variants used in step 7 are defined here and item categories are assigned to the variants in order to be used also in step 7.

To have a clear picture for splitting, the best option is show an example. If have these customizing done following previous steps:

Step1: (Accounts to be split) Item Category “0001” for Vendor accounts from 4000000 to 4100000. Also we have the Item Categories used as base for the splitting, for example “0002” will be Expenses and “0003” will be Revenues.

Step2: (Documents to be split) Business transaction “0001” with variant “0001”for documents KR (Vendor Invoices)

Step3: Profit Center has been selected for splitting

Step4: None in this example.

Step5: Method “0000000001” is activated, with Inheritance.

Step6: Method “0000000001” is defined.

Step7: For method “0000000001”, business transaction “0001” and variant (KR Invoices) and item category “0001” (vendor accounts 4000000 to 4100000) the splitting will be done following the “Processing Category” for example “1” where means “Splitting based on base item categories” and in this case we will indicate the “base item categories” to perform the splitting, for example item category “0002” Expenses and “0003” Revenues.

Step8: Same than 5.

Step9: Is defined the variant “0001”.

With this example when we enter a Vendor Invoice KR and we use 1 vendor account between 4000000 and 410000 and 2 expenses accounts (each one with a different profit center), the splitting will split the item line of the vendor in two items, because the item of the vendor fulfill with the configuration to be done the splitting, and the splitting will be done in base on the two items of expenses (as has been specified in the configuration), so the new two lines of the vendor will have each one a different profit center assigned, one from the first expense and other one from the second. 

Ledger Scenarios

In this post we will explain the meaning of term "Scenario" in Financial Accounting. In first place, it is important to know that Scenarios are assigned to Ledgers. To have a clear picture about the concept of Scenario this could be a good definition: "A Scenario defines the fields to be transferred from different application components in General Ledger Accounting".

In Customizing, to assign a scenario to a Ledger, we follow this path:

Also in customizing, to display the fields for a scenario, we follow the path:

For using in your particular project, SAP provides several standard scenarios as “Cost Center update”, “Profit Center update”, etc, but it is possible to create customer ones if any of previous ones match your needs.

To finish this post, when we assign a scenario to a Ledger we have to take into account the performance. A great quantity of assigned scenarios could low the system performance.

Standard totals table

It's sure that you have used those tables in whichever moment of your SAP life. They are very useful, functionally or technically speaking. SAP provides Totals Table in Financial area and Funds Management area containing several available fields (Profit center, segment, functional area, etc). The tables allow distinction between leading ledger and non.leading ledger.

Also, it is important to know that the tables allow field enhancements to adapt them to our needs.

FI Area: FAGLFLEXT

FM Area: FMGLFLEXT

In customizing the tables are specified following the path:

Activation of New General Ledger

A small action, a big change! The benefits of the New General Ledger is explained in a separated post. Now we indicate how to activate it. New General ledger is activated following the path in customizing:

SPRO-> SAP Customizing Implementation Guide->Financial Accounting>Financial Accouting Global Settings->Activate New General Ledger Accounting

The activation will modify paths in customizing, changing the menu to “Financial Accounting (New)” and “General Ledger Accounting (New)”.

New General Ledger

What say about New GL? The response is easy: The use of New General Ledger provides some advantages in compassion with previous versions.

• More Integration, most of ledgers are integrated into one with less cost of reconciliation and closing effort.

• Easier to maintain than classic GL.

• Document splitting in real time, it allows obtain balances at more detailed level than company code.

• Integration in real time from CO to FI.

• Segment reporting. Information at segment level.

• More power in Reporting because we obtain lower level of detail.

• Parallel ledgers (leading ledgers [0L] and non-leading ledgers), to provide the information following different financial principles.

• Customized fields can be added to the ledger.

Main components of Financial Accounting

This is a short post... but important! Although there are several sub modules included in FI, the four related in this post are the common ones in a SAP installation:

• FI-GL. General Ledger Accounting. It is the main module; it provides the central picture for external accounting.
• FI-AP. Accounts Payable. Accounting data for Vendors, closely related with purchasing module.
• FI-AR. Accounts Receivable. Accounting data for Customers, closely related with sales module.
• FI-AA. Assets Management. The module manage assets from the acquisition to the retirement, and the evolved calculations (depreciation, etc)

How to check Consumed in a Period

The report specified in this post is very important in FM Module. If you work with Funds Management, you will use it in many cases. Some days ago, I used it for a specific case, in particular to know the consumed in a specific period. The standard report we are talking about is FMRP_RW_BUDCON.

How do we access to the specific data for a period? Follow next steps:

Enter the selection criteria.

Select the report for Comsumptions in the left area of the screen.

In the column Consumed, double-click in the total.

Chose Actuals line items.

Enter the proper period and criteria to generate the report, that's all!